Complex manufacturing projects such as the design and manufacture of aircraft generally require that engineering information, component parts and processes be successfully integrated. With regard in particular to the production of aircraft, typically hundreds of thousands of parts and associated processes must be successfully integrated according to a comprehensive plan to produce an aircraft in accordance with the engineering information.
Engineering information typically includes engineering drawings and parts lists that cooperatively form an engineering product plan that describes how materials, components assemblies and sub-assemblies must be combined to form the desired product. A manufacturing process plan is subsequently compiled so that the identified parts in the desired product may be properly sequenced for assembly on the factory floor. Suitable sequencing and coordination is particularly important in complex projects since factors such as the overall cost of the project, the time required for completion of the project, and the risk of failure must be accurately estimated. In addition, other variables of importance such as the overall efficiency of the project need to be accurately estimated. Accordingly, the manufacturing process plan typically includes factory floor planning, tool planning and assembly sequencing, a compilation of work plans for assembly personnel, assembly plans, and other similar activities.
Although existing process planning and analysis methods are useful, they nevertheless exhibit several drawbacks, and thus may not accurately represent a selected process. For example, the planned configuration, as expressed in the manufacturing process plan may require assembly of the product in a sequence not contemplated by the designed configuration, as expressed in the engineering process plan. Since existing methods generally do not permit variability in tasks or resources in the process to be effectively resolved, conflicts that arise during the product assembly must often be resolved informally on the factory floor, which in turn, often requires expensive and time-consuming rework.
Previous process planning systems may not be capable of analyzing the assembly sequence of complex assemblies in a sufficiently discreet manner to identify problems prior to production implementation. When multiple sub-products or product systems (e.g. hydraulics, fuel, electrical, structures, etc.) are planned by separate technical groups, there may be no efficient method of determining if dependent parts are installed in a sequence which supports specific assembly sequence requirements (i.e., sequencing anomalies). This inability to analyze and correct assembly problems prior to production implementation may cause assembly sequence conflicts to not be identified until physical assembly on the factory floor. This may cause change, error and rework which may affect cost and schedule.
Current process planning methods may be labor intensive and prone to error. One method may require human interpretation of two-dimensional (2D) blueprints and textual information about the process plans in order to assess which parts or resources exist on the temporal configuration of the product assembly. This method may not allow the product to be visualized in a three-dimensional space and may be dependent on human interpretation of processes to identify the temporal assembly configuration. Therefore, the user may be required to imagine the temporal assembly configuration.
Another process planning method may include construction of physical mock-ups in which a pre-production example of the product is built. This method may not represent the temporal assembly state of a product but may only validate that the product design is complete.
Still another process planning method may use CAD model-based assembly trees in which the full assembly or a subassembly of parts is loaded into a viewing screen and the parts are manually added or removed to emulate the assembly state. However, this method may be difficult to maintain for multiple product configurations and may not accurately represent the process input from multiple disciplines.
What is needed is a visualization of product build using a precedence transversal method which includes compilation of a virtual temporal configuration of an in-process assembly and visualization of the results using three-dimensional representations of the affected products and associated resources. The method may allow a user to understand the product assembly configuration at any point in the build sequence.